


Pavlov's Cat and Freudian Scritches

by aeotae



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Music Puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-09 11:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10410759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeotae/pseuds/aeotae
Summary: Adrien has a Thing.  (Ladybug rings his bell.)And, apparently, so does Marinette.





	1. Chapter 1

Adrien was comfortable enough with himself to privately acknowledge that he had a bit of…Thing. 

Some had a Thing for stiletto heels and thigh-highs. Some had a Thing for the thrill of almost being caught. Some had a more general Thing: a thing for blondes or redheads, long legs, or round curves. Some had a very specific Thing. Some had no Thing.

Adrian had his own thing. 

He hadn’t known it for very long. Previous to the discovery of his Thing, he hadn’t really been able to add much to the conversations that Nino dragged him into. He could nod in feigned understanding when one of the other boys brought up the so-and-so’s new dress, but if they asked him anything directly, he always had to obfuscate, ruefully scratch his neck, and hope they’d move on without too much hassle. 

Now, though, now he was pretty sure he had a thing all of his own, not that he was planning on sharing it with a crowd. 

Adrian had a praise kink. 

He didn’t get off if his teacher complimented his class participation or Nino told him he had awesome skills at Ultimate Mecha Strike III. It barely registered when a photographer went on and on about how fantastic his poses were, and even the prettiest models he worked with didn’t faze him no matter how long they gushed over his cheekbones. 

Adrien only had a thing for one kind of praise—the kind that came from his Lady. She’d tell him he was a good kitty and he’d get warm and fuzzy inside and then the warm fuzzies would pool all together, head south, and become a hot, sharp ache.

It had built up over time, so that he found himself perking up after a particularly clever battle tactic, hoping for a proud smile or word of approval.

At this point, even their traditional celebratory fist bump would send little jolts of electricity buzzing through his veins. 

He could barely even think about the times she went further than words and fist bumps: the under-the-chin kitten scritches or, even better, a gentle ring of his bell with one long, elegant finger as she smirked over at him, eyes dancing in pleasure. 

He knew cats were supposed to be more taciturn and hard to please creatures, but it made him want to roll over and beg with his tail wagging. 

The under-the-chin scritches felt like heaven and made him purr (literally). His whole body would yearn to melt against her as her fingers quickly skipped across his suit.

But it was the bell that really did it.

The sweet, clear tinkling note of his bell as she tapped it gently had quickly become one of his favorite sounds. It was a quiet sound, but he could hear it through his whole body, the gentle hum setting off a euphony of hormones crescendoing through his veins. It made his heightened senses burn.

It was getting ridiculous.

She kept the bell in reserve, only occasionally giving it the flick he craved, but it was starting to become a thing on its own. Last week he’d entered the Dupain-Cheng’s bakery and a small bell attached to the door had chimed. His classmate Marinette had looked up startled just in time for him to blush all over and run right back out again when his body had answered the sweet note by making him feel as though all his blood had just taken up dubstep. 

He wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain his actions, but they’d been paired together for a psychology project, and he knew he’d have to face the music sooner or later.


	2. Freudian Scritches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get more difficult.

After Adrien had fled from their first project meeting, Marinette had become more than a little downhearted. Had she had something on her face? Had he realized that he’d have to spend hours along with her and been unable to stomach the thought? Whatever it was, he hadn’t volunteered any explanations, and Marinette wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. 

Alya had told her not to let it get her down, so Marinette was set on being as supporting and kind a project partner as she possibly could be so that Adrien wouldn’t dread having to meet with her anymore.

It didn’t look like it was working, and Marinette was starting to feel a bit glum. 

She knew she was a bit clumsy with her words, and she hadn’t managed to get any sentences out smoothly, but she was pretty sure she’d managed to get her points across for once. Did Adrien really hate her stuttering that much? 

He’d remembered the chapters their teacher had recommended, and she’d spent about five minutes trying to correctly word her gratitude, but she’d managed to come around to it in the end.

She cringed. It probably made him feel uncomfortable when she detoured on the way by running through a whole monologue about his perfect head, hair (that she wanted to run her fingers through, had she mentioned?), memory, and hands before she finally managed to come up with something about his book-handling and then refused to look at him for ten minutes.

(Adrien was fairly certain his entire being—every tiny vibrating atom that made up his existence—was going to simply going to drift apart and become an intensely charged cloud of floating bliss and sexual frustration.)

He’d loaned her a pencil when she pressed too hard and broke her own, and she’d been so forward as to grab his hand and stare into his eyes as she thanked him. She’d probably looked like a crazy person, which explained why he’d then abruptly turned away from her without a word.

(The reassuring squeeze of her hand had made his whole arm tingle in pleasure.)

She’d felt so awkward that she’d then launched into a whole spiel about his pencils and use of bullet-point lists in his notes, compared his handwriting to her favorite fonts, and gone on and on until she finally drifted off midsentence when she realized Adrien had actually frozen uncomfortably in place.

(He’d always thought that Marinette’s tendency to over compliment was sweet—befitting of a girl who was always so kind and thoughtful of others—but he’d never felt so needy for it before. He had to restrain himself from crawling into her lap and curling up in her sweet words.)

Once he’d managed to stiffly turn back to his stack of books, Marinette engaged in full silent meltdown mode as she cursed her foolishness and absurd inability to speak to Adrien without interference from her twisting tongue. She slumped over her book, trying to focus her eyes over the text. 

She forced herself to read through the paragraphs on psychoanalysis, trying to push her disappointment in herself to the back of her mind.

(Meanwhile, Adrien internally groaned. This Thing was rapidly getting out of control. He’d thought that only his lady could make him feel this way with her praise, but apparently any incredibly sweet girl with leadership qualities would do it for him. If they didn’t get some research done soon so that he could run off and find a corner to simultaneously melt and combust in, he was probably going to start nuzzling Marinette while he came untouched in his pants the next time she so much as smiled at him.) 

Marinette tried to keep her eyes focused, but her brain was just not processing. Instead, she found herself swirling deeper and deeper into a pit of despair as she imagined how her life was probably going to go from here on out---Adrien running from her in the halls, Nino giving her suspicious looks, other students whispering about that ‘weirdo Marinette’. She might as well just start sewing the letter “O” onto her clothes for “Obsessive” so everyone would know to stay away, she’d start eating by herself in the corner, grow her hair out so it covered her face like the little girl in that scary movie Alya had made her watch, start collecting stray cats…

Her thoughts grew more and more out of control as her brain slid completely into her dark, depressing future as a confirmed creeper.

Adrien, on the other hand, was doing his level best to read up on Pavlovian training in order to avoid embarrassing himself monumentally. He skimmed the page, absently reading until he finally hit on the paragraph about Pavlov’s contribution to therapeutic techniques that they needed for their report. He breathed a sigh of relief. He’d be able to get home and take care of his problem before he succumbed to insanity. 

He turned to Marinette.

“Hey,” he said, trying to keep his voice friendly and bright, “I found it—we should be done soon!” 

She didn’t respond. In fact, she looked more than a little glum. She was looking at the book in front of her, but she looked like she was actually trying to set it on fire with her eyes. He could practically see the despair radiating off of her.

“Marinette?”

Still no response. Hesitantly, he gently prodded her shoulder.

“Marinette,” he called again, “I found what we needed; you don’t need to worry about the report.”

He prodded a little harder.

Finally she stirred slightly awake, shaking her head as she surfaced from her daze.

Adrien thought it was kind of cute. 

Eyes still unfocused and looking half asleep, she reached out a hand toward him, gently scratched under his chin, and murmured, “Good Adrien, I knew you’d find it.”

Adrien’s eyes closed in bliss as her fingers lightly scratched his skin. Her thumb brushed along his jawline possessively and he felt every muscle in his arms and shoulders go limp. Her nails lightly drew back as she curled her fingers away, and as they drifted off his skin, he simply couldn’t handle it. Without any conscious thought, he instinctively whined deep in his throat as he chased after her retreating hand. 

Her hand froze at the sound, startling Adrien out of his stupor. He swallowed. What had he done?

Adrien slowly turned his head toward Marinette. Her eyes were wide awake in shock now, but she otherwise seemed motionless. He wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. 

“I…I…I…,” she stammered, spinning her wheels. Adrien assumed she hadn’t been prepared to handle a teenaged boy who purred at her during group assignments. 

“No, don’t worry, it’s just a thing I have. I’m sorry. Please don’t be upset,” he begged.

But, just as the words started to freefall out of his mouth, Marinette appeared to abruptly restart and launched into her own frenzied explanation. 

“I’m so sorry, it’s just this thing I do, and I guess I wasn’t thinking because I mean it’s not a thing I do to most people, it’s just for special people, not that you aren’t special! You are! Special I mean, so special. Special to me.” (Here, Adrien’s traitorous body was suffused with rosy warmth.) “I mean, it’s just for a special person in particular. Just the one. Not all of them.”

She was rapidly approaching critical failure. Finally, in one last attempt to explain herself, she gave in and shouted, “I usually only do it to Chat Noir!” 

Adrien’s brain, which had been marinating (Marinetting?) in a deluge of contentment that grew every time Marinette repeated the word ‘special’, suddenly jumpstarted.

There was a moment of absolute, stunned silence.

Then his smile grew into a Cheshire grin, and Marinette found herself with a lapful of purring kitty who looked up at her in absolute adoration as he reached up one hand to rest gently against her chin. 

“Tell me again about how you want to run your hands through my hair, m’lady?” he smirked up at the awestruck girl who he now knew was his one and only love, the girl who thought he was wonderful—the girl who was really the only person he’d ever had a thing for after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written some crack fic in my day, but this might leave them all in the dust in terms of sheer ridiculousness. Well, I had fun. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for your lovely reviews!


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